Topic: Taxes

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Having failed to get all 28 European Union countries to back a plan to tax the likes of Apple and Amazon, the Austrian Chancellor has announced plans to follow France in implementing new national taxes on tech giants starting in 2020.

Apple was busy in January 2018 with legal cases, Warhol's Apple logo art, Apple Music successes, and working hard to get us the HomePod. AppleInsider revisits the very start of 2018, the year that would see Apple become the most valuable company in the world on paper -- for a while.

France will introduce a new tax aimed at major technology companies, including Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook, with the digital tax attempting to extract funds from the tech giants while other efforts to reform European tax law are underway.

The government of the United Kingdom has announced plans to claw more tax revenue from Apple and other tech giants, with a proposed "Digital Service Tax" on 2 percent of all revenues derived from UK-based users that could be implemented in April 2020.

Apple and other major companies should be subjected to a minimum rate of corporation tax in all countries, Germany's finance minister has proposed, in order to prevent technology giants and other multinational organizations from evading taxes, despite the multinationals presently obeying all the laws presently in place.

On the heels of June's Supreme Court ruling allowing states to collect sales tax on online purchases from out-of-state sellers that do not have a physical presence in the state, B&H Photo, an Apple authorized reseller, will begin collecting sales tax in 15 additional states starting in October.

When it comes to disputing local tax assessments, Apple is one of the toughest companies in Silicon Valley, and the company has repeatedly clashed with Santa Clara County to cut down how much tax it needs to pay.

Apple has so far made two payments of 4.5 billion euros (about $5.2 billion) into an escrow account for the 13 billion euros ($15.1 billion) in back taxes the European Commission has ordered it to pay Ireland, according to new regulatory filings.

Amidst cries of "reverse discrimination" from South Korean politicians, the government of the country is planning to collect taxes from Apple, Google, Amazon and other global tech giants for the first time.

On Thursday, the European Union Court of Justice blocked U.S. efforts to side with Apple in the appeal of a $15.3 billion tax bill, which the European Commission first ordered Ireland to collect in August 2016.

On Sunday night's episode of HBO's "Last Week Tonight," host John Oliver talked about companies placing profits overseas in order to avoid U.S. taxes -- specifically using Apple and CEO Tim Cook as an example.

The Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Citizen's Action -- or Attac for short -- staged "die-in" protests at two French Apple stores on Saturday, once again charging the company with exploiting loopholes to avoid paying its fair share of taxes.

Tax Day 2018 falls on April 17 this year, and although taxpayers get a couple extra days to file 2017 returns, you'll need the right tools to get the job done. AppleInsider is rounding up the best tax prep software and filing tools for Mac users -- to not only meet, but beat, the deadline.